GB Judo finished second on medal table at 2018 Glasgow European Open

GB Judo added seven medals to their 2018 Glasgow European Open haul on Sunday 7 October at the Emirates Arena.

The two silvers and five bronze medals won today, in addition to the two gold medals from Saturday, meant that GB Judo finished second in the medal table behind France.

Shelley Ludford (-78kg) and Stuart McWatt (-81kg) both lost out in close finals to Ilona Lucassen (NED) and Shamil Borchashvili (AUT) respectively.

Ludford was fighting in her first European Open and has been at -78kg for less than a year. The 19 year old from Basingstoke had little trouble against Australia’s Melanie Wallis as she threw her waza-ari and finished the fight in osaekomi.

Her newaza came to the fore in her next two contests as she forced both Laia Talarn (ESP) and Anett Meszaros (HUN) to tap from shime-waza (strangles).

This setup a final against Lucassen and the Dutch judoka took the win thanks to a single waza-ari score.

Despite missing out on gold, Ludford was not too disheartened with the result:

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